It is well known that the act of reversing a vehicle, such as backing out of a garage or driveway or parking space, can be dangerous, particularly if a child or pet wanders behind the vehicle before or during the reversing process. A variety of backup assist systems are known to assist the driver in detecting and/or seeing an object in the rearward path of the vehicle. For example, rear vision systems are known that capture images of a scene rearward of a vehicle (such as during a reverse driving maneuver) and display the images of the rearward scene to the driver of the vehicle to assist the driver during a reverse driving maneuver. Such systems may include a rearward facing camera or image sensor for capturing images of the rearward scene, and may include other types of sensors, such as ultrasonic sensors or radar sensors or the like, which may provide a distance sensing function or proximity sensing function. Examples of such vision and/or imaging systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,550,677; 5,877,897; 6,498,620; 5,670,935; 5,796,094; 6,396,397; 6,806,452; 6,690,268; 7,005,974; 7,123,168; 7,004,606; 6,946,978; 7,038,577; 6,353,392; 6,320,176; 6,313,454 and 6,824,281, which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
Studies have indicated that drivers, during a reversing act, spend at least about 25 percent or thereabouts of the reverse driving time looking over their right shoulder (for left hand drive vehicles, such as used in the United States), and about 35 percent or thereabouts of the reverse driving time glancing at the rearview mirrors of the vehicle. The studies further indicate that, of the 35 percent of time the driver is viewing the rearview mirrors, the driver typically spends about 15 percent of that time viewing or glancing at the driver side exterior rearview mirror of the vehicle, about 15 percent of that time viewing or glancing at the passenger side exterior rearview mirror of the vehicle, and about 5 percent of that time viewing or glancing at the interior rearview mirror of the vehicle. In spite of the presence of known backup assist systems and rear vision systems, accidents still occur.